> Ewan MacColl > Songs > The Manchester Rambler

The Manchester Rambler

[ Roud 26771 ; DT MNCHRAMB ; Mudcat 59616 , 116644 ; Ewan MacColl, John Tams]

Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger sang The Manchester Rambler in 1970 on their Argo album The World of Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger. This track was also included in 1973 on the Argo anthology The World of Folk Vol. 2 and in 2000 on the Cooking Vinyl anthology English Folk Collection. They noted on their album:

Written by Ewan MacColl in 1933, and became the official song of the Ramblers Federation. Since then it has travelled as far as the logging camps of British Columbia, where the words have been adapted to suit the logging industry.

Ewan MacColl also sang The Manchester Rambler in a recording made at Pathway Studios, London, in 1983 on his 1990 Cooking Vinyl CD Black and White but the track was left out of the album’s LP issue. He noted:

One of the earliest of MacColl’s songs, written in the early 1930’s, this is widely believed to be a traditional folksong. You can still hear walkers singing it in the pubs on rambles. It was written in 1932 for the mass trespass over Kinder Scout, Derbyshire, when 3,000 unarmed walkers and hikers faced gamekeepers with clubs and police with truncheons. Many of the ramblers went to prison for their action. A plaque in the Edale Tourist information office celebrate both the trespass and this song.

The Spinners sang Manchester Rambler on the B-side of their 1967 Fontana EP Flowers of Manchester, on their 1970 Fontana album The Spinners Are in Town, and on their 1972 Fontana compilation The Singing City. This track was also included on the 1970 Contour compilation of Fontana artists, Shades of Folk.

Ex-Spinner Mick Groves sang The Manchester Rambler on his 2004 album of songs of Ewan MacColl, Fellow Journeyman. He noted:

In 1999 I was commissioned by Salford City Council to perform a concert of songs to celebrate the unveiling of a plaque to honour Ewan MacColl who like me was a son of Salford. I put together an evening of songs made by and/or colected by him. I also included songs I had learned over my years with The Spinners that had been inspired by conversations with him about the importance of linking the traditional with the contemporary. This CD contains a cross section of the songs I used in the show.

It seemed appropriate to start with one of his earliest and most famous songs, now known to many as a folksong, The Manchester Rambler. A song written for the occasion of a mass trespass over Kinder Scout in the year of my birth 1936.

The Spinners also sang Manchester Rambler in a May 2018 concert in Liverpool’s Music Room. The concert’s recording was released in the same year on their CD Legends.

Dave Burland sang The Manchester Rambler in 1978 on his, Tony Capstick and Dick Gaughan’s Rubber album Songs of Ewan MacColl.

Patterson Jordan Dipper sang The Manchester Rambler in 2002 on their WildGoose album Flat Earth. They noted:

Ewan MacColl originally wrote both The Father’s Song and The Manchester Rambler. […] The transformation of MacColl’s original Manchester Rambler was learned by Ralph [Jordan] from John Tams.

John Tams and Barry Coope sang The Manchester Rambler at Gosport and Fareham Easter Festival in 2007:

Pete Morton sang The Manchester Rambler Frap in 2014 on his Fellside album The Frappin’ and Ramblin’ Pete Morton.

Brian Peters sang The Manchester Rambler on his 2025 album Tasks. He noted:

Young Jimmie Miller was one of the Mancunian activists who strode out in 1932, and a few years later he wrote this hymn to the hills, and his experience of the battle for access. Jimmie, better known as Ewan MacColl, loved the Dark Peak, its flora and its wildlife, and I always think of this song when I hear the curlews calling on Bleaklow. MacColl said in later life that the tune was one he remembered from a barrel-organ that used to play on the streets of Salford during his boyhood. The song was sung to death on the Manchester folk scene during the 1970s, but I’ve done my best to rehabilitate it, and I use the more gender-inclusive chorus as amended by Peggy Seeger.

Lyrics

Ewan MacColl sing The Manchester Rambler

I’ve been over Snowdon, I’ve slept upon Crowden
I’ve camped by the Wainstones as well
I’ve sunbathed on Kinder, been burned to a cinder
And many more things I can tell
My rucksack has oft been my pillow
The heather has oft been my bed
And sooner than part from the mountains
I think I would rather be dead

Chorus:
I’m a rambler, I’m a rambler from Manchester way
I get all my pleasure the hard moorland way
I may be a wage slave on Monday
But I am a free man on Sunday

The day was just ending and I was descending
Down Grindsbrook, just by Upper Tor
When a voice cried “Eh you” in the way keepers do
He’d the worst face that ever I saw
The things that he said were unpleasant
In the teeth of his fury I said
“Sooner than part from the mountains
I think I would rather be dead”

He called me a louse and said “Think of the grouse”
Well I thought, but I still couldn’t see
Why all Kinder Scout and the moors roundabout
Couldn’t take both the poor grouse and me
He said “All this land is my master’s”
At that I stood shaking my head
No man has the right to own mountains
Any more than the deep ocean bed

I once loved a maid, a spot-welder by trade
She was fair as the Rowan in bloom
And the blue of her eye matched the June moorland sky
And I wooed her from April to June
On the day that we should have been married
I went for a ramble instead
For sooner than part from the mountains
I think I would rather be dead

So I’ll walk where I will over mountain and hill
And I’ll lie where the bracken is deep
I belong to the mountains, the clear running fountains
Where the grey rocks lie rugged and steep
I’ve seen the white hare in the gullys
And the curlew fly high overhead
And sooner than part from the mountains
I think I would rather be dead.

Patterson Jordan Dipper sing The Manchester Rambler

I’ve camped out on Crowden, rambled on Snowdon
Slept by the Wainstones as well.
I’ve sunbathed on Kinder, been burnt to a cinder
And many’s the tale I can tell.
My rucksack has oft been my pillow
Heather has oft been my bed.
But, sooner than part from these mountains I love,
Well I think I would rather be dead.

There’s pleasure in dragging the peat bogs, and bragging,
Of all the the fine walks that you know.
There’s even a measure of some kind of pleasure,
In wading through ten feet of snow.
Well I’ve seen the white hare on the heather,
The curlew fly high overhead.
But, sooner than part from these mountains I love,
Well, I think I would rather be dead.

Chorus:
Nothing changes, it all stays the same,
They’re selling the moorland for profit and gain.
They’ve sold all the rivers, bought all the rain,
And you can’t go up there there, you’re disturbing the game.

Cods roe and caviar, milk stout and champagne,
Gold cards and dole cards, but, never the twain,
That’s the game, that’s their game …
Nothing changes, it all stays the same.

So, I’ll go where I will over mountain and hill,
And I’ll lie where the bracken lies deep.
I belong to these mountains, these clear crystal fountains,
Where the rocks they stand rugged and steep.
Well, I’ve stood on the edge of the downfall,
Seen all the valleys outspread.
No man has the right to own these mountains I love,
Anymore than the wide ocean bed.